Edward Bruce Hamley

Name: Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS
Author: Edward Bruce Hamley

Summary

“Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS”, published in 1877, is a work by Edward Bruce Hamley. It explores elements such as Ferney, Boswell and Voltaire.

Quotes from Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (Edward Bruce Hamley)

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ But his companions there were men whose doctrines and practice would, in life, have revolted him. Beside him was laid the wretch Marat, whom he would have loathed and denounced. The violent overturning of the old monarchy, the proscriptions, the massacres, the guillotine—these would have received no countenance from him, and found no warrant in his writings, which had always inculcated those principles of toleration and justice that were no more respected by the Revolutionary Government than by the despotism which it destroyed. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ He met me in the hall; his nephew, M. d'Hornoi, Counsellor in the Parliament of Paris, held him by the arm. He said to me, with a very weak voice, 'You see a very old man, who makes a great effort to have the honour of seeing you. Will you take a walk in my garden? It will please you, for it is in the English taste; it was I who introduced that taste into France, and it has become universal. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ However this may be, it is chiefly as a literary phenomenon that Voltaire is now interesting to us. In that light it appears to the present writer that no inconsiderable part of his extraordinary fame was owing to the circumstances of the period, and the conditions in which he wrote, and has reasonably vanished with the lapse of time. That he still retains so eminent a position in France is due, in great measure, to those gifts of expression which do not much aid in extending a writer's reputation beyond his own country. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ It seems likely that the extraordinary old man might have continued for some years to enjoy his work and his comforts at Ferney, but for an unlucky visit to Paris in 1778. His niece, Madame Denis, had lived with him ever since he had been in the neighbourhood of Geneva; a short, fat woman, vulgar, unfeeling, extravagant, and very fond of gaiety. Notwithstanding that she had never been handsome, and was far from young, she spent so much time at her toilette that Voltaire seldom saw her till dinner ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ It is not easy to conceive it possible for life to subsist in a form so nearly composed of mere skin and bone as that of M. de Voltaire. He complained of decrepitude (he was then 76) and said, He supposed I was anxious to form an idea of the figure of one walking after death. However, his eyes and whole countenance are still full of fire; and though so emaciated, a more lively expression cannot be imagined."
He then inquired after English news, and talked of our poets of the day. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ As we learn from other authority that he was in the habit of driving out in a carriage adorned with gold stars on a blue ground, and with carved and gilded mountings, few philosophers, in any age, when taking the air, could have presented a more splendid appearance. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ What is more apparent is, that when a people have been so long and grievously misgoverned and oppressed, and find their relations with the Government so changed as they were when Louis XVI. and the people's representatives assumed towards each other such novel attitudes, the impending convulsion is not so much to be ascribed to the influence of this or that man, as to the constant accumulation of destructive force on the one side, and the constant diminution of repressive power on the other. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ Voltaire had a new tragedy about to appear; she tried to persuade him that it never would receive justice unless he should superintend its production on the stage: other arguments were used and persisted in, until the poor old man was brought reluctantly to consent. Immediately on entering Paris he received a shock in the news that his friend Le Kain, the actor, had been buried the day before. As soon as his arrival was known, vast numbers of visitors poured in to pay their respects to him ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ Cut off a little corner and we are out of France. I asked some privileges for my children here, and the king' (or rather Voltaire's friend, Turgot, then finance minister) 'has granted me all that I asked, and has declared the Pays de Gex exempt from all taxes of the Farmer-General; so that salt, which formerly sold for ten sous a pound, now sells for four. I have nothing more to ask, except to live.'
"The next day as we sat down to dinner, he said in English, tolerably pronounced, 'We are here for liberty and property! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Edward Bruce Hamley, Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (1877)

“ As years went on and found him still by the Lake, he became known as "the Patriarch of Ferney;" and as he kept himself incessantly before the public by his writings, and with constantly increasing fame, the tide of visitors continued to augment in numbers and importance. It became necessary for people with intellectual pretensions to make at least one pilgrimage to the modern Mecca, where they might have the advantage of hearing the prophet explain his own doctrines ”

Edward Bruce Hamley

Summary

Quotes from Voltaire — HIS LAST YEARS (Edward Bruce Hamley)

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